[LINK] RFI: How should virtual group members interact with one another?

[Stephen Loosley]

Roger writes,

> A virtual organisation (..  a professional, occupational, advocacy or common
> interest group) needs a channel for communications among members ...
> In 2020 what would the Link Institute recommend as that channel?
> Quick List of Requirements:  (follows sensible list of needs)


Rather than thinking of platform needs, maybe thinking of platforms with which
successful virtual groups appear to have settled upon and have grown may help?

Over the many virtual groups we have all joined at some time or other, one that
seems to have stood out for me anyway is the Aussie “Trailer Sailer Place” group.

Here: https://www.trailersailerplace.com.au<https://www.trailersailerplace.com.au/>
And here: https://trailersailerplace.com.au/phpBB3<https://trailersailerplace.com.au/phpBB3/>

This group (existing only on-line) has successfully survived online for many, many
years. It’s a sailors group, with a warm, welcoming and helpful online local forum.

The software platform utilized would appear to include most if not all of the many
requirements you have listed Roger and it simply works for we members very well.

It’s not a sexy or flashy platform, but free and it’s claimed the world’s most popular.

The platform: https://www.phpbb.com

About phpBB® https://www.phpbb.com/about/

“Millions of people use phpBB on a daily basis, making it the most widely used open source bulletin board system in the world. Whether you want to stay in touch with a small group of friends or are looking to set up a large multi-category board for a corporate website, phpBB has the features you need built-in.

Newer users will appreciate phpBB's extensive administration panel, which allows the customisation of even the most intricate features without having to edit code directly while advanced users will value the ease with which phpBB can be integrated into existing systems.

Because phpBB is released under the GNU General Public License, you may make changes to the code without first having to obtain permission from the phpBB Group. Our extensive database of user-created extensions makes changing and adding features as simple as pasting code into the appropriate files, while the styles database contains hundreds of style and image packages to customise your board.

The detailed documentation available on this site will help you get phpBB running on your server in minutes. If you have any questions please visit our Community Forum where our staff and members of the community will be happy to assist you with anything from configuring the software to modifying the code for individual needs.

No other bulletin board software offers a greater complement of features, while maintaining efficiency and ease of use. Best of all, phpBB is completely free. We welcome you to test it for yourself today*.”

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After many years, it’s still updated regularly .. eg, the latest update was two weeks ago:

https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2562636

Development Team Leader

phpBB 3.3.1 Release - Please Update

Post by Marc » Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:14 pm

Greetings everyone,

We are pleased to announce the release of phpBB 3.3.1 "Bertie’s Twenty". This version is a maintenance and security release of the 3.3.x branch which fixes one security issue, introduces further hardening, and resolves various issues reported in previous versions.

Previous versions of phpBB did allow limiting the dimensions of images posted. This could however also be used to e.g. check for the existence of services that should only be accessible from the internal network. We would like to thank FVD for reporting this issue to us via hackerone. The issue has been assigned CVE-2020-8226.

The fixed issues include, among others, issues with using Emojis in multiple text fields, the inability to delete or mark PMs read in the UCP folder view, issues with resetting a password, and a slow search on PostgreSQL. The amount of emails sent for notifications related to topics have been improved and new and improved enable and disable mechanisms for newer profile field types have been integrated. We would like to dedicate this last addition to javiexin.

The full list of changes is available in the changelog file within the docs folder contained in the release package. You can find the key highlights of this release on the wiki at https://wiki.phpbb.com/Release_Highlights/3.3.1 and a list of all issues fixed on our tracker at https://tracker.phpbb.com/issues/?filter=15291

The packages can be downloaded from our downloads page.

The development team thanks everyone who contributed code to this release: 3D-I, kasimi, rxu, Dark❶, KYPREO, Alfredo Ramos, JoshyPHP, javiexin, Jakub Senko, ansavin, Bob Weinand, Kidounet, MichaIng, hubaishan, ioannisbat, phpBB España

If you have any questions or comments, we'll be happy to address them in the discussion topic.

- The phpBB Team

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